My youngest brother ought to be a personal shopper for odd folk who don't know what to buy for their favourite odd person. Yesterday he presented me with the gift of John Kenn Mortensen's book Sticky Monsters and I went slightly hysterical. I'm a big fan of the Danish artist's work. If you're not familiar… Continue reading Sticky Monsters
If you would like to see your creative work featured and reviewed on Wyrd Words & Effigies, don't hesitate to get in touch. I established this blog (and soon to be magazine) with the goal of celebrating all that is strange, and like nothing better than spreading the dark word about oddities that I believe… Continue reading Spreading The Dark Word
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I’m an enormous fan of the fabulous Enchanted World books, published by Time Life Books in the 1980’s. In the past, I’ve reviewed Night Creatures and Ghosts and have done so with lashings of praise. Seekers and Saviours is the final book in my… Continue reading Book Review: Enchanted World – Seekers and Saviours
Whenever I hear about the publication of a new book on the subject of Black Metal, I pounce and pre-order. When the tome arrives, I savour it, lapping up every word, sometimes putting it back down after one chapter, to return to it the following day, so as to make it last longer. My first… Continue reading Book Review – Black Metal: European Roots & Musical Extremities (Ed. Troy Southgate)
‘Most people chose to sleep when daylight faded.’ I seem to recall owning a mass of these Time-Life books as a child, but where they’ve disappeared to is sadly another story. The book I am writing about here was a gift a couple of years back, and came from one of the finest bookshops in… Continue reading The Enchanted World:Night Creatures – Book Review
I first encountered Scott Bradfield in The Mammoth Book of Wolf Men, with his incredible short story The Dream of the Wolf. I purchased his short story collection almost immediately, greedy for more of his dark and sinister writing. The cover of my copy is not electrifying. I don’t know if there was a wraparound… Continue reading Dream Of The Wolf By Scott Bradfield – Book Review
‘Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers at night may become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.’ - Ancient gypsy saying. When I was first developing the idea of setting up Wyrd Words & Effigies as a blog, one of my main objectives… Continue reading A Review Of Werewolves: The Occult Truth By Konstantinos
‘There is something unnerving about people who can’t be located dead or alive. They upset our sense of space – surely the missing ones have to be somewhere, but where?’ – Margaret Atwood. Whenever I visit the library, I make a beeline for the travel section, and crouch down to inspect the lowest… Continue reading A Review Of Frozen In Time: The Fate Of The Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie & John Geiger
‘Up here a man becomes aware of things that he can’t perceive further south.’ I read most of Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, but got bored after a while. The series started off great, but then they got a bit, well, ugh. I reckon that’s why it’s taken me a while to pick this… Continue reading A Review of Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 